This is a cool photograph because when you first see it you are unsure if you are looking at an adult domestic cat killing or eating a newborn kitten (!) or a mother cat grabbing her newborn by the scruff of the neck to carry her to the den. The thing is that mothers do rarely kill their young. I have a page on this in which I discuss the reasons which you can read by clicking here.

It is hard to capture this kind of photograph as the moments are very fleeting. You just have to have the camera at the ready and be all the cat for a while to get that moment. I guess this could disturb the cat as some don’t like being photographed and in any case you want to leave a mother and her young kittens alone as she has a lot of work to do and demands peace and quiet.

Mother cat grabs her newborn kitten by the scruff of the neck. Photo (believed) by Ilya Varlamov on Flickr

HERE ARE SOME MORE PAGES ON MOTHERING:

Female, domestic stray cat has a kitten and knows she needs a human caregiver and asks

There is only one way to interpret the behaviour of this stray, female domestic cat who leads the video maker ...
Read More

5 reasons why mother cats kill their kittens

People ask why mother cats kill their kittens. Here are five possible reasons. The first general point to make is ...
Read More

Do domestic cat mothers instinctively know how to care for their offspring?

Not always, is the answer. You would have thought that as the domestic cat is considered to be barely domesticated ...
Read More

Why do domestic cats bring prey animals into their owner’s home?

You may know the answer so I won't go on about this. It's actually often a reversal of roles depending ...
Read More

Do cats recognise their mothers?

I argue that cats recognise their mothers based on the evidence including how their recognise their human guardian ...
Read More